Abstract
THE sliding filament mechanism for muscular contraction was first established in the case of vertebrate striated muscle1,2. Shortly afterwards good evidence for the existence of a similar mechanism was obtained in a molluscan smooth muscle3. Attempts to explain contraction in vertebrate smooth muscle, however, met with considerable difficulties, mainly because of uncertainty about the state of myosin in the living relaxed muscle. This still cannot be decided from the biochemical4–6, electron optical7–16 and X-ray diffraction17–19 evidence available so far. Here we present evidence from X-ray diffraction studies suggesting that in living relaxed vertebrate smooth muscle myosin is present in the form of filaments.
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LOWY, J., POULSEN, F. & VIBERT, P. Myosin Filaments in Vertebrate Smooth Muscle. Nature 225, 1053–1054 (1970). https://doi.org/10.1038/2251053a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/2251053a0
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